Ex-guard member plans to sue state - The Sheridan Press

4 Opinion The
Birthdays
capture
a child's
energies
T
here are a few things in life that, no matter what,
make me feel better. One is birthdays, especially
a child’s.
There’s nothing that can
compare to the joy of watching
a child anticipate that day they
call their own.
The excitement begins with
a faint glimmer of realization
— “My birthday is only two
months away” — and explodes
into a full frenzy at least a
week before the big day.
Then the countdown begins.
“ Only six more, only five
more, only four more … days
until my birthday.”
This is when they also
launch a full-scale public
relations/advertising campaign. They pull out all the
stops to ensure that their birthday is not forgotten. They
drop hints about what they want. They constantly
remind you that their birthday is “tomorrow.” They are
absolutely absorbed in the plans for the big day.
This leads to my favorite part about kids’ birthdays
— shopping.
I love to scheme and plan and browse to try to find
the perfect gift for that child I want to bless.
It takes a lot of thought and effort to ferret out the
gift that will bring joy at the first snippet that peaks out
from the wrapping paper and delighted ooohhs at the
final unveiling.
Sometimes I’ll see something I think is totally cool,
but it’s not right for the child. So I have to think “Does
this remind me of (insert name of child here)? Does this
look like (insert name of child here?”
Sometimes I choose the wrong color and I think days
later … no, the red one was the right one.
Then again, finding that perfect gift is sometimes as
easy as walking down an aisle and spotting a green
grasshopper pillow. “That’s it!”
I love the anticipation in their eyes. The excitement
of the day. The rattling and poking at presents to
determine the contents.
Yes, nothing delights me more than celebrating
someone else’s birthday.
After all, a birthday is not just any day — it’s the
most special of days — child or adult.
Berry's World
Liz
Phillips
News Editor
E-mail us
Managing editor Steve Miller:
steve@thesheridanpress.com
News editor Liz Phillips:
liz@thesheridanpress.com
Sports editor Patrick Murphy:
patrick@thesheridanpress.com
Staff reporters:
Senior staff reporter Pat Blair:
pat@thesheridanpress.com
People/Society news Louise Constable:
louise@thesheridanpress.com
Wyeth Friday: wyeth@thesheridanpress.com
Larque Richter:
larque@thesheridanpress.com
Staff photographer Roger Ames:
roger@thesheridanpress.com
Letters
Offers compromise
to fence flap
Editor:
I was surprised to find the controversy over “the
fence” on Pioneer Road is actually around what was
known as Fort Benson, to many of us locals, years ago.
I went to see for myself. I was stunned at the impact
of the 6-foot solid white wall. Perhaps it isn’t the
height of the wall — it’s the complete solid mass of the
thing. In years past, the hedges, shrubs and brick all
blended nicely with the surrounding landscapes. The
stark solid white is a shock to the whole area.
Compromise?
Six-foot chain link next to the street and 4- or 5-foot
white around the pool area. Chain link lets the
landscape breathe and blend in with the surroundings.
It would also soften the shock of the blazing white.
I’m looking to buy a home on the hill, but definitely
not looking at that fence.
Pat Furley Chichester
Sheridan
WASHINGTON — I carry within me the childhood
memory of nuclear air raid drills, waiting under my
fragile school desk for that flash of light Sister said
would signal the world’s end.
I know, too, the present specter of a Mideast or
Asian zealot lobbing a crude A-bomb across an
unfriendly border — or delivering it, somehow, to us.
Did the 51 Republicans who voted down the
Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty enter the
Senate chamber sharing some other life experience than
mine? Is their fear of invading
United Nations helicopters,
their hatred of Bill Clinton so
severe as to deaden their
human aversion to nuclear
warfare?
If so, I must warn them of a
danger that is both close and
manifest: politics. As Mr.
Clinton showed at his
nationally televised press
conference last Thursday,
perhaps the finest hour of his
presidency, he is prepared to
By TOM RAUM
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON — Usually,
politicians work to keep military bases
open to curry favor with constituents. But
away from the continental United States,
the sentiment often goes the other way.
Hillary Rodham Clinton has become
the latest American politician to wade
into the maelstrom swirling around
whether the Navy should abandon its
bombing range on the Puerto Rican island
of Vieques.
The controversy — spawned by the
death of a civilian security guard in April
in a bombing accident — comes as the
U.S. military is having a hard time
finding welcome mats.
Chris
Matthews
Columnist
Address The Press
Write: The Sheridan Press, Box 2006,
Sheridan, WY 82801
Letters must be signed and include the
address and telephone number of the
author, and are used for verification only.
Unsigned letters will not be printed. Letters
should not exceed 400 words. E-mail to
steve@thesheridanpress.com
What others say...
The New York Times, on
departure of Kenneth Starr:
Common sense and the rule of
law both dictate that any
independent counsel charged with
investigating a president has a civic
obligation to make a final report to
the nation on his or her findings.
Kenneth Starr is skittering away
from that obligation even though
the taxpayers, after the expenditure
of $47 million, have every right to
expect him to be the government’s
most knowledgeable official on the
Monica Lewinsky scandal,
Whitewater and related matters. Mr.
Starr, who accepted the job of
independent counsel in 1994, likes
to blame the White House for
damaging his reputation. But no
one in the Clinton administration
can fairly be blamed for his failure
to stay the course. ...
Mr. Starr may feel that any report
destroy them over their vote of the day before to reject
the treaty to which he had put his hand.
Clinton issued the warning loud and clear. As long as
he sits in the Oval Office, countries antsy to bolster
their nuclear arsenals might well show restraint. But the
moment we get a commander-in-chief of a different
bent — Republican presidential front-runner George
W. Bush leaps to mind — all bets would be off.
“Now, if we ever get a president that’s against the
test ban treaty, which we may get — I mean there are
plenty of people out there who say they are against it
— then I think you might as well get ready for it.
You’ll have Russia testing. You’ll have China testing.
You’ll have India testing. You’ll have Pakistan
testing.”
Someone, in their partisan souls, deeper even than
their visceral hatred of Clinton, Republicans like Trent
Lott, must know the time bomb they have set with this
vote. Why else did they offer to put off the humiliating
vote if the president would promise to bring the treaty
vote back next year on the eve of the election?
But if they envisioned the popularity of Clinton’s
position come the year 2000, why did they take the
position they did last week?
The Air Force and Navy were forced to
close bases in the Philippines in 1992,
U.S. nuclear-powered vessels are banned
from New Zealand. And misbehaving
American soldiers have strained relations
with Japan.
The United States must close its bases
in Panama when that nation takes control
of the Panama Canal after midnight
December 31, under a treaty signed in
1977. Panama rejected the continued
presence of the U.S. military.
‘‘We don’t want any more bases in our
country,’’ Panama’s president, Mireya
Moscoso, said in Washington on Tuesday
after a meeting with President Clinton.
That it would also find itself unwelcome
in Puerto Rico is a particularly bitter pill
MALLARD FILMORE by Bruce Tinsley
Sheridan Press, Thursday, October 21, 1999
from him would be tainted by the
perception that he has pursued a
vendetta against Mr. and Mrs.
Clinton. But copping out on his
duty is not the answer to that
problem. Having led the nation on a
tumultuous journey punctuated by
the impeachment of a sitting
president, Mr. Starr was obliged to
spend a few more months deciding
on any final indictments and
delivering his professional
conclusions about the quality of the
evidence on all aspects of his
sprawling inquiry.
Mr. Starr took over as a former
federal jurist with a reputation for
sound judgment. Yesterday, by
leaving before his job was done, he
further diminished a reputation
damaged for the most part by his
own legal and public-relations
decisions.
Quotes
for the Pentagon since it’s U.S. territory.
‘‘We are not angry with the Navy. It is,
after all, our Navy,’’ said Puerto Rican
Gov. Pedro Rossello. ‘‘We are not angry,
but we are convinced enough is enough.’’
Puerto Rican officials are near unanimous
in their desire to see the Navy leave
Vieques, after nearly 60-years of uneasy
coexistence.
Mrs. Clinton’s comments, as she
campaigned for the Senate in New York
earlier this week, helped to raise the
political temperature of an already
feverish debate.
‘‘There should be an immediate and
permanent end to the bombing,’’ Mrs.
Clinton said, disagreeing with a panel
named by her husband that on Monday
Akron (Ohio) Beacon Journal,
on Cincinnati case against gun
makers:
The potential gravy train filled
by gun manufacturers’ money came
to a halt in Cincinnati last week and
there the train should remain,
permanently derailed.
Judge Robert Ruehlman of
Hamilton County Common Pleas
Court threw Cincinnati’s claim for
damages from gun makers out of
court. He said it didn’t belong there.
Ruehlman based his ruling on a
simple premise. Cincinnati had
charged that the gun makers’
product is unsafe because it lacks
sufficient safety devices, such as
trigger guards. Yet Ohio has no law
requiring trigger guards.
The legislature should confront
the issue of stronger gun controls.
The gun manufacturers make a
legal product.
‘‘We have no plans to increase
patrols, but will continue to
monitor the area — not just for
Ramsey’s grave, but for all the
graves in the cemetery.’’
— Marietta (Ga.) police Lt. Rick Townsend,
following graffiti in red marker on JonBenet Ramsey’s
grave ‘‘No Justice in U.S.A.’’ in the days after a grand
jury declined to bring charges in her death.
‘‘Regardless of the message, the
First Amendment says people
have a right to express their views.
They have a right to anonymous
political activity.’’
— NYCLU executive director Norman Siegel, about
the New York Civil Liberties Union filing a lawsuit
claiming the New York police department improperly
denied them a permit to hold a rally and that they have
a First Amendment right to wear hoods at the
demonstration.
GOP serves up President Clinton his finest hour
Is there some weakness in the test ban only
Republican senators can appreciate, but which cannot
be shared and understood by the rest of us? For if it can
be shared, why do they fear so much to duke it out in a
full-fledged public debate?
By killing the treaty, they have given Clinton’s party
a powerful issue in the next election. Remember how
much damage Newt Gingrich inflicted on his House
majority when he said the reason he’d closed down the
government four years ago was because Bill Clinton
made him sit in the back of Air Force One?
Imagine how voters will react to the knowledge that
the Republicans killed a nuclear test ban to spite the
man who signed it? To the belief that the loyal
opposition has done damage to the country simply to
hurt the lame duck Bill Clinton?
By their own politics, the Republicans of the U.S.
Senate may have given us their worst hour of
leadership, and President Clinton his finest.
(Chris Matthews, chief of the San Francisco
Examiner’s Washington Bureau, is host of “Hardball”
on CNBC cable channels.)
Copyright1999 NEWSPAPER ENTERPRISE ASSN.
Hillary in campaign raises heat of bombing range debate
recommended limited resumption of
bombing — and a five-year phase-out
timetable.
Since the accident, a temporary
moratorium on bombing has been in
place on the 20-mile-long island that is
inhabited by 9,300 civilians.
Mrs. Clinton’s position may play well
with New York’s Puerto Rican voters but
it hasn’t exactly been cheered by the
Pentagon or its defenders in Congress.
‘‘I’m not aware that the first lady has
been elected to make a decision on this
question,’’ said Pentagon spokesman
Kenneth Bacon.